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| THOMAS W. REZANKA |
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| Serving Others Since 1980 |
Palm Harbor, Florida |
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Living Wills, Medical Declarations, and other advance directives
A Living Will is a directive through which you may indicate your desire to not to be kept alive unnecessarily (and perhaps not forced fed or forced hydrated) when your doctors have determined that everything that could be done medically has been done, and you should now, in accordance with your living will, be allowed to die naturally and with dignity. Many consider this a way to take the burden of decision making from their spouse, children or other relatives.
Florida’s Living Will statute is substantially different from laws adopted in other states and jurisdictions. Your attorney can draft a living will comprehensively for you and can customize it to include provisions congruent with your cultural or religious beliefs.
You should exercise caution in utilizing living wills picked up from a hospital, doctor's office, or funeral home that have been prepared only to meet Florida's living will technicalities, but which may not be acceptable outside of Florida. Additionally, most forms that are readily available at little or no cost do not permit for customized drafting of the living will to represent your specific desires or, in some cases, give you so many choices that it makes it almost impossible to properly complete the living will.
A Do Not Resuscitate Order is not the same as a living will, is almost never executed at the same time as a living will, and may be executed by the agent appointed under your durable power of attorney. Generally, only those who are terminally ill or who have previously had strokes or heart attacks and truly do not wish to be resuscitated, should consider the use of a Do Not Resuscitate Order signed by both the patient (or his or her agent) and the patient's physician. Do Not Resuscitate Orders are color coded in Florida on canary (yellow) paper and may not be effective otherwise. Different rules apply to those executed for use in a hospital, nursing home, or other facility.
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